Bankruptcy among Young Executives in Malaysia Nazni Noordin 1+ , Zaherawati Zakaria 2 , Mohd Zool Hilmie Mohamed Sawal 3 , Kamarudin Ngah 4 and Zaliha Hj Hussin 5 1,2,5 Faculty of Administrative Science & Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, P. O Box 187, 08400 Merbok, Kedah. Malaysia 3 Faculty of Information Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, P. O Box 187, 08400 Merbok, Kedah Malaysia 4 Centre for Policy Research and International Studies (CenPRIS), Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Pulau Pinang Abstract. Holding a numbers of credit card and personal loans among young executives is a normal scenario right now. Some people claims that by having a numbers of credit cards, it will reflect someone socio economy status. Without realizing the impact of the excess usage of credit card, more and more young executives were declaring bankrupt due to credit card debts. This research intended to know the factors that contributed to the bankruptcy of young executives due to credit card debts. The findings of the research provide useful information to young executives as well as public in order to increase their awareness regarding this bankruptcy issue. In this study, researchers were looking at the relationship between knowledge about credit card and knowledge about bankruptcy and also lifestyles toward bankruptcy due to credit card debts. Of all the variables, only lifestyle has no relationship toward bankruptcy due to credit card debts. In order to curb with this problem, it was suggested that young executives should be provided with sufficient information regarding all matters pertaining to credit card usage as well as general knowledge on what things that can make them declared bankrupt. Keywords: bankruptcy, credit card, credit card debts, young executives 1. Introduction Credit cards were first issued in the USA in the early twentieth century. In Malaysia, the first card was introduced in the mid-1970s (Zafar U. Ahmed & et al., 2010) [1]. At the early on period, credit cards were only issued to professionals or successful business persons by card issuing companies. However, with the passage of time, eligibility criteria for obtaining credit cards have been changed because credit cards are now easily obtained by individuals regardless of their income or other measures of financial well being. As a result, the number of cardholders reached to about three million by the turn of the last century (Zafar U. Ahmed & et al., 2010)[1]. The increase of credit card has brought many side effects to the users especially for the people aged below 30. This is because credit card influence them in making the excessive spending because it easier and convenient for user to pay with credit card rather than bring cash with them. As a result, in March 2009, outstanding debts from credit card holders amounted to RM15.719 billion were reported. Then, by the year 2009 outstanding credit card debts accounted for 1.35 percent of the total loans outstanding or 11.41 percent of the total consumer credit (Bank Negara Malaysia, 2009; as cited in Zafar U. Ahmed & et al., 2010)[1]. Thus, its shows that increase in the number of credit card holders seeking bankruptcy records over the years + Corresponding author. Tel.: +604- 4562519; fax: +604- 4562234 E-mail address: nazni@kedah.uitm.edu.my. 132 2012 International Conference on Economics Marketing and Management IPEDR Vol.28 (2012) © (2012) IACSIT Press, Singapore